The Eternal Blue
by nukethestars
Summary: Ambiented in a world akin to ours that was immensely changed by the impact of a meteorite near 201X, follow the story of four teammates trying to make it big in the world of pro dueling. Rated T for now, might go up later.


_15 years ago_

A person lied on the floor, every piece of furniture in their room engulfed by the flames.

"Mom!" The small boy cried with all his might, tears streaming down his face. Once again he tried moving, but the huge wooden drawer pinning down his arm prevented him from doing anything. Even if he could move, the pain was paralyzing, the fire having burned both skin and muscles, and even exposing the bone in some parts of the arm. "Mom, where are you! I'm so scared! Mom! I...I don't want to..." The boy said, his voice becoming weaker and weaker by the second.

Accepting his fate, the boy closed his eyes and hoped that at the very least, his mom was alright.

...

But out of nowhere, a man riding a huge winged beast broke through the wall! He extended his hand to the small boy. "Oh my..." said the man after noticing the hurdle preventing him from moving. "It'll be fine. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here."; said the man with a smile, trying to sound as soothing as possible.

FIlled with both joy and amazement, a small smile formed itself on the small kid's face. "Please find...my..." but his words were cut short by his coughing, a result of having inhaled a ton of smoke. Shortly thereafter, he was finally free from the drawer's grip. He tried to say something, but found that the words just wouldn't come out. With all strength leaving his body, the kid once again closed his eyes, the last things on his memory being the man's bichromatic eyes, one black one yellow and the feeling of safety brought by the arms carrying him.

A drop of sweat fell down the face of a girl in her early twenties, covered in blankets.

"It's morning." Kris thought.

However, she did not know this because of the sunlight entering the room through her window, or the beeping cars belonging to white collar workers trying to get to their jobs, or the "god damned birds" that chirped every day, at the same hour while sitting on the tree planted on the street right across her apartment. No, she knew this because...

"...and those fucking morons are fighting again." she uttered to no one. "7:21 am." Taking a look at the old-fashioned clock on her nightstand, for a second she considered trying to get some more sleep, but the screaming coming through her door and right into her ears killed any hopes she would've had of getting some more rest.

A normal person would probably be livid.

A normal person hasn't woken up to this twelve times just this month. Grinding her teeth in frustration, she finally decided to get up, her waist-long gray hair moving behind her like a tail.

"They're a bit bigger than yesterday..." she thought, looking at the bags under her eyes while standing in front of a mirror hanging in the wall of her personal restroom. She wasn't a morning person at all, and when her sleep had been so...unhelpful for the past couple of days, this kind of thing happened. Combine that with her extremely messy hair and gray eyes that could kill with a glance, and you get the face of someone you don't want to mess with, especially when the day has just started.

Her clock's screen now showed that the time was 7:32, and yet the arguing hadn't stopped. In fact, try as hard as she might, she couldn't make out a single word anymore. She was completely sure that by now, they were just mindlessly yelling at each other. Deciding that she was presentable enough, Kris finally went out of her room, making sure to slam the door behind her as hard as possible.

Eight steps in front of her door was a coffee table with 4 chairs. Two of them were occupied by the two persons who were instantly shut up by the banging of the door.

"Good morning."

"Ohayou", said a tall guy of around the same age as Kris.

"Morning", said the girl sitting across him, waving her hand as if to dissipate the anger clearly vissible in the expression of the person glancing at her.

"What were you guys arguing about this time?" Asked the gray-haired girl with a calm voice.

"Ah, well..." the sitting girl started speaking, but was quickly interrupted. "No!" Kris shouted at the top of her lungs, and the mouth of the girl in front of her was shut again. "That was a fucking rhetorical question! The true question here is, was the thing you were arguing about so damn important that it led you both to waking me up yet again with your fucking incesant yelling?" she continued, the poison now clearly dripping from her words. "Just what have I done to deserve this? I've given you shelter and food and don't mind it at all, but could you please act like the young fucking adults you are supposed to be and have some grade of consideration for not only me, but our neighbors?" she kept ranting, her voice gradually returning to her slower, usual calm tone.

"It's fine, I...I'm sorry" said the guy, a tinge of apprehension in his voice.

"Shut up! You said the same thing the first time, and the time after that, and the time after that!" Kris started yelling again. "Look, Vier, I know you're-" she was distracted by the hand waving in front of her face, holding a chocolate bar. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked.

"Are you hungry?" asked with a playful smile the girl with shoulder-lentgh hair colored in fiery red. "If you still want to kill us after eating this, I'm sure we can arrange something..."

"You can't silence me with a chocolate bar!" But Kris's actions betrayed her, hands quickly ripping apart the plastic covering of the chocolate. "And you...too..." she struggled to keep her voice and anger up, instead filling her mouth with pieces of the sweet treat. Finally deciding this was a waste of time, she took a seat at the table in front of her with a sigh, bringing a smile out of the other girl.

"Whatever. If some guy with a chainsaw breaks through the door asking who are the idiots waking him up every morning, I won't stick my neck out for you two."

"I sincerely doubt that will ever happen." replied Vier.

"Shut up.", Kris sneered back at him and went to the kitchen, where a fourth person with an arm wrapped in bandages was brewing both tea and coffee at the same time.

"You, why didn't you even try to do something?" Kris asked, taking out the earbud in one of the guy's ears.

Andreas let out a small laugh. "As you well know, they only listen to you, dear."

"When did I become a babysitter? Their parents should pay me, man."

"Good luck getting a deal with Beatrix's father. Have you even met that guy?" Andreas asked without looking at her, instead focusing on pouring tea in a cup. "That man's stare would reduce even you to a mumbling mess."

"It can't be that bad, right? A single person can't be that intimidating."

"Oh but he is, believe me." He calmly stated, giving her a tray with a cup of tea, a cup of coffee and two plates with eggs, bacon and some toast. "Dear, would you mind taking this to the idiots?"

Kris silently returned but made sure to slam the tray on the table, making some of the green liquid in the cup jump and spill over the plate nearest to it. "Enjoy it."

"No!" Vier screamed with an astonished expression. He tried to save the eggs from coming in contact with the tea, but it was too late. "Why you...baby, would you mind swapping with me?" he said looking at the girl sitting across him with pleading eyes, his mouth contorting.

"No can do." Beatrix answered, taking a bite out of her own eggs. "If you hate that thing so much, why do you keep drinking it?"

"She's right", chimed in Andreas, carrying a plate of eggs for himself. "You even bought the finest tea leaves you could find, but what's the point when you depise the stuff? Maybe the problem is the person brewing the tea?" he asked, playfully pouting.

"There's no problem whatsoever, the only thing you could do to make this taste good..." Vier said while gulping down the entire cup in a matter of seconds, "...would be dumping it entirely, cleaning the cup and then filling it with soda or something. " he finished, disgust plastered all over his face. "Or brew it mixed with leaves from an Underworld Flower, but I don't know if I'm ready to say goodbye to one of my organs yet."

"Say, Kris..." Beatrix asked, after the contents of her plate dissapeared as quickly as the tea. "Are you still hungry? I just so happen to have a bar of chocolate-covered bacon bar in my bag, that must be better than just eating a mouthful of sugar right? It would also emulate the flavor of a regular breakfast, I guess."

"That would probably be the best we can do until we make it big and you can buy a cake each morning, yes." Andreas said while taking a sip out of Beatrix's coffee cup while she wasn't looking.

 _Making it big, yes..._

 _My name is Kris Hartsema and I'm the leader of The Eternal Blue, a professional duelist team looking to, as my teammate so aptly put it, make it big. Although I guess that calling ourselves professionals is a bit of a stretch, given that you could say we're barely looking at the long road ahead of us. But the year's Grand Championship is only 3 months away and our final opportunity to qualify is standing right in front of us! The thing is, I seem to be the only one of my team worried about us losing somewhere along the way, and that does say something when I...nevermind. Anyway..._

"No, I'll be fine." Kris said, longingly gazing at the bacon in Andreas's plate. "I'll just get the usual on the way to the stadium."

"You're going to the stadium today? What for? Our match is in five days." Vier asked, looking at the now contaminated eggs in front of him as if by looking at them hard enough they'd fix themselves.

"Not just me, **we** are going to the stadium." Kris said, making emphasis on the we part. "We need to practice, especially after the last one."

"Oh? Excuse me? You're saying 'especially after the last practice match' as if it was somehow close."

"They got us down to the final member."

"And why, pray tell, was it that such a thing happened?" Vier replied in a mocking inquisitive tone. "Bea, is your memory better than hers? Maybe you can remember what happened?"

"Hmm? Eh..." Beatrix said, taking a gulp out of her coffee cup, "...she said she was gonna crush the other guy's hopes and gave him six turns to set an unbreakable field that took all of us to beat."

"And there you have it." Vier sneered. "If you say that we need to practice then we'll practice, but don't you try to bullshit me or them. It won't fly." he said while adjusting his glasses, his expression suddenly a lot more serious.

"Tch, now you're the angry one..." Kris uttered, looking out of the huge window right next to her. "At any case, we do really need to practice. We're only four matches away from making it! This is not the time to slack!" she yelled while hitting the table with her hands.

"If I may..." Andreas's soft voice called everyone's attention. "I think you're getting too worked up. You know the guys we're up to next, and they should hardly be a match for you or me, let alone Vier or Beatrix who defeated three on her own the last time." he shrugged, his reasurring voice making her a bit calmer.

"Even if that's probably true...overconfidence is the mother of failure, or something like that." she said, recalling the mantra taught to her by someone in the past.

"Screw it, I can't eat this thing." Vier whispered, throwing the contents of the plate out the window. "I'm just gonna go and buy a box of donuts or something. You think you can forget what happened this morning and say that you had a sweet start to the day?"

"Whatever. If you go out, don't forget that we're leaving for the stadium in an hour." answered Kris, who was looking with sparkling eyes at two stray dogs going through the breakfast from heaven.

"I don't think Alex is that slow at walking." said Beatrix, stifling a small laugh.

"I'll even go with the Tiger, just so you don't get your cute dog panties in a bunch." he said, in a teasing tone. Both Andreas and Beatrix loudly laughed, while Kris's expression instantly soured. "Make sure you don't crash. Or do, I don't care."

"Who do you take me for?" he said, while putting on his black leather jacket. "You?"

And with that, he was gone.

 _1 hour and a half later_

Kris walked in circles in the living room. "Just where is he?! I called him and he's not answeringahhhhhhhh I'm gonna break his neck when he returns!"

"Relax, it's still early anyway." said Beatrix, lazily reading something in her phone while lying on the couch.

Suddenly the door opened, and through it went Vier with a huge box on his arms. "Heh, sorry for the delay. I had to wait for the donuts to actually be prepared, you know. And since glaring at the oven like someone *cough* would do would actually take me nowhere, I could do nothing but patiently wait." he said with a smile on his face. "Here you go." he said before stuffing his mouth with one of the warm donuts from the box and grabbing two more, handing them over to Andreas and Beatrix who were looking at him with drooling mouths.

Kris found it hard to stay mad at him, and just accepted the box in silence with slightly downcast eyes. Taking a bite out of one of the donuts, a slight smile formed in her face. "Strawberry filling..."

 _10 minutes later_

"Okay, it's time for us to leave." Kris said, in a cheerful but slightly commanding tone.

"Ahem, aren't we ignoring the elephant in the room?" Andreas asked.

"Yeah, how do you even plan on getting to the stadium? On foot?" Vier asked as well, raising one of his eyebrows.

"It's fine, she'll just go with Andreas on his Runner! The Cobalt is more than capable of transporting two people, isn't it?" Beatrix quickly gave them a solution, although...

Andreas's ears suddenly became a bit redder. "Ah, er, um...sure, she can come with me."

"It's settled then!" Kris exclaimed, proudly puffing out her moderate chest in a triumphant pose. "Let's go boys!" she said before running out of the department, her long hair barely avoiding getting caught by the door closing behind her.

Everyone groaned a bit as they stood up and went out the door.

 **Fletcher Stadium**

Kris let out a yawn so huge anyone looking at her would think her jaw was about to break.

"Easy there, Kirby." Vier joked, looking away from his laptop. "You don't look so hot this morning."

"And whose...fault is that, I wonder..." Kris kept yawning, a drop of anger leaking through her words. "Also, I had that dream last night. You know how it goes...when that happens."

"You mean the one with the building or the one with the table?"

"The one with the table."

"And what, did anything interesting happen this time around?"

"No, it was the usual." Kris started to explain, but was interrupted by the beeping of her phone. "Oh look, we just got here and we already have a single duel practice invitation. That was easier than I expected."

"And who's gonna answer the invitation?"

"Me, who else?"

"Yeah, I don't think so. What runner are you even gonna use?"

"Yours? Beatrix's?

"You'll have to pry the Tiger's authorization key from my cold dead fingers, friend. And I'd rather let you crush my hands with a sledgehammer than let you drive Bea's Phoenix."

"Please, you're being overdramatic." Kris retorted, facial muscles slightly contorting. "As usual. It'll be fine, why must you always be like this?"

"Kris, you crashed the last time you were in a single practice in this state. You crashed. Just in case you still haven't heard me, you fucking crashed! You could've killed the other guy, not to mention yourself!" Vier said, his voice becoming gradually louder. "Did you know that you're the first person in over seven years to crash in a duel?"

"Yes, you made that perfectly clear that day..."

"And the person before you was someone driving a D-Runner for the first time!" He continued, making exaggerated movements with his hands. "Not only that, but you're also clearly not in a state fit to drive a vehicle. Right now I'd have second thoughts about letting you cross the street so you can get to the convenience store."

"Look, I..." Kris wanted to keep arguing and tell him that she didn't need him to worry about her, but she has been feeling the waves of tiredness wash over her for a while now. The lack of rest she had in the past couple of days was taking its toll. "Fine. Who's gonna answer it then? You?"

"I'll pass, I've had six duels in the past four days. Bea must be itching for one, just where is she?"

"Speak of the red devil..." Muttered Andreas, looking up from the table he was sleeping in.

"Hey! I finally got the thing I ordered!" Happily exclaimed Beatrix, now wearing a huge red and white coat with a flame motif.

"What the..."

"Uh..."

Both Vier and Kris were out of words.

"So, what do you guys think?" Beatrix asked, positively beaming while spinning to show them all the angles of her new piece of clothing. "Does it suit me?"

"It looks great, dear." Vier was the first one to start talking.

"Looks fine, Bea. By the way, we have an invitation for a single practice. You up?" Kris asked while holding up her phone.

"Oh great! I've been wanting to do this for a long time! Unfortunately I won't get to showcase it the way I wanted to, but no can do." Beatrix said with a smile. "I'm just gonna take that and..." she slid her own phone over Kris's. "Okay, I'm gonna go over and meet my opponent. Wish me luck!" But before they could say anything, she was already gone.

"This girl...by the way, did you guys finish that injection system you said you were gonna add to the Phoenix?" Kris asked, trying to stifle a yawn just as big as the last one.

"We finished installing it yesterday, but couldn't do the test run. Who knew that rocket fuel would be so hard to come by?" Vier replied, now furiously typing something.

"You're kidding, right? You're using rocket fuel? In a freaking D-Runner?"

"Only for the initial acceleration, no need to worry." Vier's fingers became even quicker, moving so fast through the holographic keys any onlooker would think they were cutting through space and air.

"If it goes wrong the whole stadium will probably become a mountain of smoldering debris." Andreas added, only to Kris's dismay.

Vier adjusted his glasses, with a slight smirk in his face. "You're doubting me? Have I ever failed you?"

"I feel like I've seen this guy's name somewhere..." Beatrix thought. "Ah, there he is."

"Hey!" Said a guy waving his hand, sitting near a D-Runner pitch-black as the night.

"So plain..." She thought. "So, you're that Joel that sent the challenge?"

He nodded with a smile. "It's been a while, Beatrix."

"Just where do I know you from?" She asked, trying to recall.

"From the Pro Circuit? We even had a duel once a couple of weeks before you dropped out." He answered with a small stifled laugh at the end as if to mock her. "But I guess someone with your skills and last name doesn't need to remember the name of plebeians such as me, right? After all, you're the holder of that rare card aren't you?"

Beatrix's face twitched at the mention of her last name. "Tch, if you say that you're from the Circuit, then why are you here? Trying to qualify for the big one by beating, say, what you would consider lesser teams because the actually skilled duelists wouldn't let you pass?" She said, with poorly concealed disdain.

Her words clearly caused some turmoil in the other guy, as he was now standing, fists clenched, mouth twisting. "What are you even talking about?"

She ignored him while turning on her duel disk, a holographic orange blade coming out of the external side. Accompanying it, was the lens that she permanently wore over her left eye, now colored in a matching orange color. "At any case, time's a wastin'. If you want to test yourself against me, then let's do it already."

 **Duel!**


End file.
